A painful 8.5 inch wrinkle

Inspector came today (one guy for 3 inspections) and passed electrical and plumbing but not HVAC/Mechanical. Why? you say.

Well, because our condenser unit is 38" tall and on the 5' side of our house where we requested variance setback, it doesn't meet code. No structure taller than 30" can be on your footprint if you do not have 7.5' between your house and your property line. Makes sense doesn't it?

So I need to either...
a. Find a heat pump unit 30" or less in height (seems like they don't exist)
b. Move unit to back of house where we have tons of room to the property line but then are under our deck which may cause problems or
c. Apply for a new variance to allow my condenser to sit next to my house next to my neighbor's driveway

A & B are big challenges. C is a HUUUUGE time suck and will still cost $150-200. Applying for a variance means filling out paperwork, getting signatures from neighbors, going to two neighborhood meetings to plead my case, and going before the City zoning board in OCTOBER!

Not sure what I'm going to do. Talking with my HVAC guy to find out. Not the best way to get back into the swing of things. No one seems to know why 30" is the rule but I bet there's an interesting story of a neighbor doing something very stupid at around 31" that created this requirement.

Nearing the finish line and one last fling

So we spent a few days in Gainesville but the weather was kind of dreary and rain-filled. Some good sun but rain most days for at least a little bit. Went tubing in Helen (in the rain) and did some fishing on the dock (Wendy caught this catfish's brother and a perch) before packing up and getting back to the house.

Once there we saw the color up inside and out. Looks good but have some tweaks to work out with painting outside original windows and side porch. Lou came and put in most of the lights, plugs, and fans on Wednesday. Mike, and
Lorenzo, came in and got bathroom plumbing hooked up as well (though shower needs some sort of adjustment). On Friday, gutter guys came in the a.m. and knocked them out in just an hour or so. Our shower door came around lunchtime and got installed (though Wendy thinks it may need to be adjusted). Danny came with his helper and got the thermostat in and the HVAC operational. Needless to say, Friday was quite busy and productive. In just a few short days the upstairs took on a very finished look and feel. I'm still working on Wendy's medicine cabinet but hope to finish when I get back.

"Get back?" you say. Yes, get back. Right now I'm writing from New Orleans. Since Wendy has to start back to work on Wednesday, and the lake was so rainy last week, we thought we'd squeeze in one official Vite! Vite! Vacation (Quick, Quick in French). Left Friday afternoon and drove to Pascagoula, MS where we slept and dipped our toes in the Gulf (not as beachy as I'd hoped and the weather was once again rainy). Saturday morning we drove to the Best Western St. Christopher on Magazine Street and began our whirlwind tour of New Orleans. Now we've definitely finished with
vacation. We get back Monday and focus on finishing the house and begin preparations for a new school year.

Color's a-coming

We'd toyed with the idea of taking a tiny family vacation - maybe running to the beach - during painting. Another night or two with overwhelming fumes might crush the buzz of getting things done.

Painters showed up and got right to work scraping

and caulking. I tried to get all our receipts entered while Wendy and kids packed to get away for a few days. Decided a modified "staycation" would be smarter, cheaper, and still relaxing. Key was to get away as a family before Wendy has to get back to school. August 1. Lake Lanier and possibly Helen look like good prospects.

Contacted Electrician, HVAC, and Plumber to see when they could get back to finish up their tasks but don't have anything scheduled yet. Getting close to the finish line but this could be the toughest part.

On the fly

So much of what I've done is just be at the house and answer questions like Where does stuff go? How do you want this done? Where are the materials we need to get it done? At the same time, living in the house while this goes on means that I can see what I didn't plan for and try to come up with a solution of some sort.

One example is that we decided we needed to open up the stairwell door to give us more room to walk and
move stuff upstairs. So I knocked it out just before the trim guys got here so that it could be trimmed. Same for the wacky little "windows" I cut in the stairwell wall. Needed to trim them out with leftover casing before painters showed up. Tons of little things have made the difference in keeping things on track.

Shower was tiled by Peter's helper Brandon. He worked hard but it sure took a long time. He finished around 9pm on Monday. That was good because Gabriel was coming back on Tuesday to put first coat of poly on floors. That went pretty well but we didn't realize how strong the fumes would be, even though it was all upstairs. We survived and then had to deal with a second night that seemed a bit better.


Painters were scheduled for Thursday but rain showers pushed them back to Friday. Turns out another day for the floors to dry couldn't hurt.

The challenge of timing

So Gabriel's red oak floors needed to sit unfinished for about 5 days so they can acclimate (expand/contract)
to the weather. Peter still needed about 3 days to get all tile work done. I was hoping to get the trim crew in to do all the trimwork. Then it'd be a race between getting painting done or floors finished.

Well, Peter came back and tiled the shower curb (Wendy doesn't care if there's a 2nd bathtub in the house) and laid the floor tile on Wednesday. That made room for the trim guys to come in and trim out the bathroom whenever. Fortunately, Tony scheduled them to come hang all the doors and trim it out on Thursday. That meant I needed to find/get all the doors, pocket and bi-fold door jambs, and make sure all the trim was delivered. Made it all happen (except wrong floor trim was delivered and I didn't catch
the mistake until it was installed).

While all the flooring and tile fun was going on I recruited Wendy to help me replace all of our downstairs windows with new double-hungs that were operational (not painted shut) and more energy efficient. Of course we had high efficiency with our storm windows I installed about 10 years ago. But we couldn't clean the windows due to this and we were constantly looking through a haze. Off the shelf windows were 1/4 inch too wide for our existing frames. I decided to try and sand/trim frames to make them fit. It was no fun and very tiring but we got them all done while the kids were at camp. Key was to get them done before house painting began. Last thing I want to do is get on a ladder and deal more with these windows than I already have. That's how we took advantage of our "honeymoon time".

Sheetrock finished!

4th of July Holiday and kids going to sleepaway Camp Toccoa on Sunday took up most of the activity lately. Sheetrockers finished putting up and beginning finish mudding. With the daily rains (wettest summer in history I believe), it was too humid for mud to dry as they'd hoped. That meant they finished on Monday the 8th - same day we got called from Camp saying Deacon had already fallen and broken off part of each of his two front teeth. The fun continues.

Thought they'd be done over the weekend but gave an extra day to schedule Gabriel to do the hardwoods starting Tuesday. He said he'd be in and out by 1pm, so I scheduled Peter to start
bathroom tile at 1pm. Turns out they weren't as fast as they'd hoped and ended up doing floors until 4 due to running short of wood. Peter still showed up and worked on building the shower pan. That was all he hoped to accomplish on this first day back to work after his anniversary cruise.

While Gabriel and Peter were stepping over each other upstairs, Arvydas was working on the chimney building it up 3 feet to meet code. He had a small crew helping get that job done but was done by
early afternoon.

In this one short day we had a Romanian doing the flooring, Polish tiler, Lithuanian chimney, & Mexican bricklayers all at our house at the same time. Quite the international affair I'd say.

2 Weeks of Slackitude...kinda

So it's been over 2 weeks since I wrote and... yes, I suck for not keeping all you voracious fans up-to-date on our progress. Reality is most of you who read this have dropped by the house and know what's up. For those who haven't, I'll try to set things right. Date on this post has been falsified to 7/3 so that it stays linear.

Trip back from Tuscaloosa on Amtrak was painful. Painful mostly because I had the proverbial worst seat in front of the craziest stereotypical ghetto loud gin-drinking-kid-smacking-curse-dropping mom in America. Fortunately, got home on schedule and my lovely wife and daughter met me gleefully at Brookwood Station.

As I got home around 830p, it was starting to get dark. The sheetrockers had begun work and had maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of the work done. Amazing how much smaller a room can seem once sheetrock closes in the sticks. Though our bedroom is spacious, it feels much smaller and our closet seems MUCH larger (not that Wendy's complaining). As you can see, the bathroom medicine cabinet is massive. I tried to frame in a space for it and it fits fairly well. Just will need to trim it out once installed.

As I walked up the stairwell in the dark, Wendy noted, "It's so dark!" Had I to do it again, I might have added a suntube in the top of the stairwell. As a poor man's solution, I told W I'd cut holes in the upper wall so that light could filter in from that casement window. Looks wonky but should work in the long run. They can be little tableaus for artwork, action figures, strange knick-knacks, etc.

Progress was being made and Dad was resting peacefully, though uncomfortably in Tuscaloosa.

Almost back on track

Brought Dad home from the hospital yesterday so he's getting used to being back in his bed and among his
things. Hopefully, recovery goes smoothly. I'll be leaving Tuscaloosa today via Amtrak. Should be an interesting piece of old-time Americana for me. Hope to just read and sleep.

Meanwhile - back at the ranch - things are starting to move again. Tony got down to the house on Friday and installed the 2 remaining windows (the contentious egress casement window included) and got the framing for the screened in porch completed. Can't wait to see it

all. Hard to believe I've been gone 5 days and so much will have changed. Should look much more like a home when I get there.

Sheetrock started going up today. No clue how that will progress. Really want to see how they get 12' and 14' pieces up against the wall and on the ceiling. Just got off the phone with Gabriel and he's ready to slot in when he puts in wood flooring. Sounds like I may have a bit of a conflict with Peter/Tile wanting to be first and Gabriel/Wood having an opening. The next 10 days should be interesting.